English
Graceful, charming, sweet, and singing,
Our living tones are beginning,
With a sense of beauty rising
As flowers forever bloom.
Peace and Joy do flow together
As the calming play of waves.
The once bitter has forever
Transformed into august Joy

Music’s magic reins enchanting,
Telling us the sacred wa-ay.
The sun’s mighty glory rising
Night and tempest turn to day.
Peace reigns the world, Bliss reigns the heart,
Solacing the blessed men.
All the genius in Springtime’s Arts;
Let all sunlight shine from them

Grandeur did pierce our hearts with light,
Blooming new in wond’rous sou-und.
Once our souls have taken in flight,
Spirit choirs do resound.
Let all Truth shine, joyous beings,
From High Art’s beloved Grace.
When Love and Strength, come uniting,
All men rise through Divine Grace.

Beethoven’s next sonata, the Sonata in E (Op. 14), is a breath of fresh air following the dark and weighty Pathetique Sonata (In Cm, Op. 13), and it comes with a sibling; the Sonata in G (Op. 14). Both sonatas are lyrical and mild, but sophisticated as ever – Beethoven always has tricks up his sleeve – and are structured as the Pathetique, where a weighty first movement in sonata form is balanced by two other movements. The Sonata in E resembles a string quartet with its frequent four-part writing, counterpoint, and imitations, most easily found in the first movement but also present in the later movements.

AllegroFollowing the idea of a string quartet, Beethoven opens with a main subject in E, with violin parts sustaining long melodic notes high on the treble while the viola and cello parts play a knocking rhythmic motif. The melody rises in gentle open intervals of 4ths, 5ths, 6ths; in essence rising from dominant to tonic to dominant to tonic again. The little flurry at the end with the high tonic note is a frequent trope in violin solos. Yes, the phrase ends on E, the tonic, but it’s unresolved; a question waiting an answer. And Beethoven chooses to answer with a motif played in violin I, violin II, viola, and cello parts; this way he brings the melody back down to earth. In essence, the dominant note, B, leaps down an octave four times.

Now Beethoven is ready to bring all string quartet parts at once, and he once more makes the dominant note the crux of the music, repeating the same small phrases but in different registers, using them to travel from one B note to another to another. The harmony is basic V-I, not too special, but he does use a chromatic rising and falling line for the viola and cello parts in the latter parts of the first subject. It transforms the usual harmonies leading back to E; D#d7 becomes augmented to D#m and B7a becomes diminished to B7.

So how does Beethoven get us to the subordinate subject in B? His solution is to use a variation of the first four bars to carry us from E to Bm. The melody rises up the B scale (or E scale in Lydian mode, take your pick) to the new tonic note while the harmony plays F# but delays resolving it to Bm; instead progressing chromatically F#-E-Am-A#d-Bm. But Beethoven avoids the usual V7-I cadences, opting for F#-Bd instead, while his melody trades between B and Dh notes until finally touching F#, dominant of B. Again, Beethoven highlights the dominant note.

The subordinate subject in B acts as a subject for imitation and counterpoint, especially the descending pickup notes used to get your attention (as pickup notes starting a subject are common to most contrapuntal subjects). Beethoven uses the four voices in chords to spell out three harmonic progressions: D#s4-F#7, F#7-B, B#hd7-C#m-A#d7-B, which avoid a typical V7-I with a secondary dominant (D#s4) and a deceptive cadence (B#hd7-C#m). Beethoven uses an extra sentence as a bridge to take us to the closing theme so as to not make the transition awkward; the harmony is now pretty typical V7-I but the melody itself builds from an F#7 chord.

The closing subject mutates Em (subdominant) from minor to major many times; a technique also used by composers such as Schubert, and as such the melodic line changes from a rising half step (F#-Gh) to a rising whole step (F#-G#). Beethoven then builds a bridge to smoothly return to his main subject, which makes sense in this gentle sonata. Beethoven uses a B scale melody to rise to a climax; a deceptive cadence in C#m, before resolving us back to F#7-B with a leading tone melody. Beethoven then leads us back to the main subject with a bridge using IV-I where the cello part now takes the opening motif.

The development is smooth and straightforward, built on two cores, the second core also acting as a retransition. The precore, yet another version of the opening four bars, takes the melodic line up the E scale, from E as tonic to E as mediant, but the harmonies, the context the melody is in, drastically changes; Beethoven wanders into F7a (Neapolitan), then into diminished chords finally resolving G#d7-Am. Beethoven brings in new material of octaves (based in part from the opening motif and the movement’s obsession with dominant note octaves), and where Beethoven makes a poignant modulation from Am to C. He moves from Am to Dm7, which seems odd until it mutates to D7, becoming a secondary dominant; we now see a D7-G7-C progression as Beethoven modulates to C (relative major of Am). The subject develops; the melody rises to a high F note and cadences to C to mark this transition. The subject develops again; the melody starts in Em but shifts gears to A#d7 to leap up an E note octave in a lamenting call before resolving to B.

The second core, also the retransition, exchanges the opening motif in the base and treble, the new home key now Em. Beethoven slowly winds down with a V-i progression, with some A#d7-B and A-Em (a major subdominant), knocking with B notes the whole time, using this constant dominant to return us to E. The main subject returns in a loud and excited variation, then returns to normal. Now Beethoven uses a different transition to show growth and change in the music, now in C, which surprises us as the melody seems to lead to at Em. This new transition develops the knocking eight notes into a fast rising scale while the opening motif is exchanged between treble and base. Then Beethoven modulates to the subtonic through Chd7-B, using an A# leading note in the cello part to guide us to B. The remaining bars are similar to their exposition counterparts, albeit with a A#d7-B progression.

The subordinate subject remains the same, just in keys a 4th lower. The closing subject has a similar exchange as in the exposition with the melodic line rising a half step one moment (B-C) a rising whole step (B-C#) another, but the harmonies are slightly different; D# mutating between D#d7 and D#hd7. We enter the coda, where the opening motif returns low in the base, the knocking eight notes now in the middle, creating the warm, rich feeling of strings in the lower registers. Beethoven develops the motif with a downward phrase to resolve it, the harmonies and base shift between dissonant progressions, F7-E and F#d7-E (exchanging between Neapolitan and supertonic). The motif moves to the treble, now developing by rising to a high E; the movement makes a quiet return to the tonic.

AllegrettoThe second movement is a minuet in Em and is based on a dotted swinging rhythm, leaps up a 3rd, and half steps, giving many accidentals. We see four-part writing throughout the movement, once more suggesting a string quartet. The subject builds around a broken Em chord, the melodic line rising to B (dominant) before resolving. Beethoven uses atypical harmonies, moving to C (submediant) very early, then using leading tones to progress A#hd7-Am and D#d-Em. The first sentence ends in B, hanging, the second, now an octave higher, resolves to Em. We enter a major section in C, the melodic line built on the 3rd (E to G) and repeating G (dominant). Andras Schiff mistakes the progressions here as Plagal cadences (IV-I) but Beethoven always uses D as the base note, making his harmonies Dm7-G (ii7-V). Beethoven then moves the melody through E to F#, the harmonies, A#d-B, hanging on the dominant.

Beethoven returns to his Em subject but develops it, highlighting Dm with drawn out block chords and frequenting on the eight note turn, progressing G#d-Am. He then uses a codetta to draw us to quiet, wistful finish in the high register, constantly using D#d7-E. The music now becomes very contrapuntal; the cello stubbornly on E (tonic), the violin I in leading notes D#-E, the violin II and viola in eight note turns in opposite directions.

The minore part of the minuet finished, we enter the maggiore part in C. Beethoven once again builds his material on the 3rd (E and G), but his melody is looser, moving around broken chords, and connects to the higher octave with a rising broken chord and chromatic notes. Now the melody is in sustained three quarter notes and drops by small intervals of a 4th and 3rd, whatever puts him in the tonic and dominant. The cello part is interesting as it makes a long chromatic descent. The violin II does a similar thing but in smaller phrases. The maggiore subjects resolves to the dominant through Dm7-G, once more the “Plagal” cadence.

Now Beethoven develops his subject in A, with extra counterpoint in opposite motion in the viola part; now the melodic line builds on the G and Fh notes, using what the downward whole step “naturally” suggests to move down a C scale. As surely as Beethoven developed the falling whole step, he develops the chromatic rising cell, taking it up high two octaves, then preparing us for the return to the minuet in Em; the melody falling from E (tonic of Em) to B (dominant of Em), the base subtly shifting like quicksand C-Em-B. The coda of the entire movement proceeds as the second half of the development, but softer, sweeter, sadder.

Allegro commodoThe third movement is a Rondo in E, exuberant and simpler, lacking most of the four-part string quartet writing from the first two movements. We enter the main subject, melody in octaves leaping up a dominant upbeat to E (tonic), climbing up the scale and settling on A (subdominant). The base comes in triplets, in essence broken 6ths, descending the E scale to a dominant pedal, the harmony moving from E to B7. So now the main subject is suspended in the dominant, how do we resolve it? Beethoven introduces a rapid descending scale and four-part counterpoint so the melody falls from A (subdominant) to G# (median), then resolves to E (tonic). Beethoven repeats his opening line again but this time develops his material to transition to B (dominant). He does so by exchanging the descending scale cell in different registers in imitation and expanding it so it so it drops low to D# (leading tone) and high to G (mediant). This lets melody build up to a climax trill A# (leading tone to B) and having it fall to B.

The subordinate subject is very brief, based on the same large open leaps at the climax of the transition, but this time the music is calm even though almost the exact same notes are being played. In a way the subordinate subject is a bit disappointing. The subject sounds like it will begin a counterpoint but the violin II, viola, and cello just fill in the harmony; but at least that harmony progresses as C#m-F#9-B, focusing on C#m (relative minor of E). A small variation follows, and the melody sits on B (dominant of E) as the harmonies modulate back to E through B-F#7s4-B#7, the sustained 4th at F# and 7th note in B signaling a descent back to E.

The main subject returns but repeats differently, leading us to a second subordinate subject that acts as a development section by leaving E to go to G (mediant). The melodic line now reaches higher to touch on Ch (submediant of E), and the harmony follows suite from Am-Gs4. Beethoven expands on his rapidly falling cell, repeating it, letting it drop to lower and lower registers, going G-D-G so we hit the development. Beethoven composes this paragraph to be pretty straightforward. The triplets take the front in the treble, the melodic arc rising and falling through broken chords, the base in octaves; no subject is borrowed from previous material except maybe a fragmented baseline early on, which makes sense as Beethoven quickly moves through many different chords. Regarding harmonic progressions, the development slowly leads us from G back to E, moving from D-G to E7-Am to C#hd7-F#m7-Bm to Dm7-G to B7-Em to B7-C to G#d7-Am to F#hd7-A#hd7-B7. The retransition is really simple; a E-B progression, the triplets rising up a chromatic scale to a high B, hanging on the dominant.

The main subject and transition return, almost the same as before, but modulating to A (subdominant) rather than E as usual. Beethoven takes the harmonies to an interesting route by modulating to F (submediant) through Bb (Neapolitan) with A-Bb-F-Ehd9-F. Now Beethoven takes the melody to D# (leading tone of E) so as to return the harmony to B (dominant), which he does through F7a-D#d7-B7; he moves the harmonies down by 3rds. Beethoven synchopates the main theme into a variation but he brings imitation back as the rising melody that distinguished the main subject now assumes a base role with a descending countersubject on top. Then the main subject (still in the base) becomes a variation moving from C to F# (dominant of B); the harmony starts in D#d7 but moves to B7 instead of E, delaying the leading tone. We resolve into a coda in E with a cell of chromatic notes. The rapid falling scales return, finishing the piece in a sentence similar to the transition. The last harmonies are A#d-B-E.

I still feel sketchy when analyzing the melody or thematic material. Otherwise, my formal and harmonic analysis is fine. I may not analyze any more sonatas or only sonatas I really like since it may take a year to analyze them all and I would really like to compose my own music thank you very much. Improving my own skills is the reason I do such tedious work in the first place. Beethoven’s 3rd sonata is a brilliant finish to a unique triplet of works, each showing very different moods. The Fm sonata was tragic and brooding, the D sonata was lyrical, the C sonata is vivid and dazzling; it’s virtuoso score hints at piano concerto material.

As usual, a complete formal and harmonic analysis of the piano sonata is in the video above, an overview of the sonata’s overall form below.

0:00 The 1st movement, in sonata form, has the most distinct piano concerto feel to it, since the transitioning passages do look very much like a piano accompaniment to an orchestra. The main subject on the other hand is not that energetic by itself but does have enormous potential energy, which Beethoven exploits by setting it off like dynamite. Unlike with the earlier sonatas, Beethoven’s doesn’t focus so much on the main subject; most of the music in this movement sounds like stock set of riffs Beethoven used to improvise, which he did a lot early in his career.

9:30 The 2nd movement is far off in the mediant key of E, a relation we see for the first time. The movement itself is made of two very different characters; the first one is a rather complex lyrical melody Beethoven goes out of his way to leave unresolved, the second character devotes the left hand for a singing baseline with dotted rhythms lifted from the first character while the right hand plays arpeggios similar to those of a Baroque prelude.

16:40 The 3rd movement has cheeky scherzo that uses F# and starts the downbeat at A, which confuses the key of C major. The scherzo consists of a descending subject that changes registers (and hands) as it keeps going down the keyboard. Meanwhile, other voices join it in counterpoint, often based on the playful turn at the very beginning. The minor trio is more conventional; the right hand plays triplet arpeggios while the left hand plays a simple base. The coda is built on the Bdim-C cadence (vii/I) as opposed to the more usual G7-C cadence (V7/I). All this is subtle humor on Beethoven’s part but sadly most of the jokes are lost to us as we don’t understand the language of sonata form like Beethoven and friends did. It’s hard to get parodies and jokes when you don’t speak the language fluently.

19:57 The 4th movement is an extensive rondo as Beethoven returns to the main subject over and over again, changing it in many different ways, while departing from it afterward in a new direction almost each time. What you get is a pretty complicated rondo, so complicated you could even see sonata form elements in it, complete with two expositions, a long development section, two recapitulations, and a coda. Beethoven, as I said before, wanted to give the finale of a piece the most weight, and tried different ideas throughout his career. He often settled this problem in his early days by expanding the rondo by making it more like a sonata.

This sonata gave me a real headache. Anyway, this is the second of three Beethoven piano sonatas in Op. 2. This work is light, lyrical, and witty, as opposed to the dark and tragic Fm sonata. But don’t be fooled! The A sonata is more complex and difficult as Beethoven plays with mediant (III) and submediant (VI) keys a lot, frequently leaping to them. He also likes to leap to the supertonic (ii) and flattened subtonic (VIIb), which are both a M2nd away.

A complete formal and harmonic analysis of the piano sonata is in the video above, an outline of the overall form below.

00:00 – The first movement plays a lot with downward triads and running up and down the scale, usually with a lot of counterpoint. Beethoven is fond of leaping by the III or VI in the subordinate subject, as well delaying the harmony from changing alongside the melody, which makes the keys more ambiguous. Beethoven leaps down the VI especially in the development and the subordinate subject in the recapitulation.

11:11 – The second movement suggests definite instruments; muted trombones and string bases in the main subject. Beethoven bases the whole melody of the main subject on peaking it at B4 and F#5, then taking it down. This is the basic structure to many classical melodies but Beethoven takes it to an extreme. The developments in Bm and D are in typical keys. The first development is based on the descending scale, a contrast to the main theme.

17:32 – The scherzo of the third movement is based on a rising arpeggio while the trio is based on a descending scale, like so much other material in this sonata in all the Op. 2 sonatas. Beethoven takes the development of the scherzo all the way to G#m (vii), an extreme place to go relative to A. The development of the trio is in C, a far less distant key relative to A.

22:18 – The last movement is very long and substantial for a rondo, showing that Beethoven is unhappy with the overall structure of sonatas. The minuet and rondo are usually short and light in content, which is lopsided considering how large and important the sonata form in the first movement is. The early Beethoven’s attempts to solve this problem involve making the last movement either sonata form or lengthy rondos, such as this movement. Save the best for last as the saying goes.

The main subject is an operatic dip from E6 all the way down to G4 or F#4, and is the most striking subject of the entire sonata. This movement may be the most gentle and lyrical of the entire sonata but it is the most complex and difficult as Beethoven leaps to the III and VI keys more than in any other movement. The “development” sections explore the dotted motif of the main subject while the “transition” turns the 16th note ascension of the main subject in all sorts of directions; descending down the scale, arpeggios, turns etc.

Beethoven’s last “Kurfursten” sonata is more lighthearted in tone than his first two sonatas, especially the dark and sublime sonata in Fm, but it has the most intricate design of all three. The young Beethoven does not necessarily develop his musical ideas more thoroughly than before but he does expand the overall structure of sonata form. He uses his musical material a little more purposefully and he makes some savvy use of mutations, chord progressions, and sixteenth notes.

The first movement is in sonata form. We turn to the exposition; the main subject (bars 1-12) has treble notes in intervals of 3rds and 6ths to give the music a mild, relaxing feel. This subject in particular evokes the image of a lounge room, gentle and reclining, and is thus similar to the second movement of Mozart’s Symphony no. 23, which also treble notes spaced apart in 3rds. In either case, Beethoven uses accidentals to be more diverse with his harmonies as playing I-V-I can get boring fast if no ideas are developed soon; I refer to the G#3 note base implying E (V/V) and the Ch5 note implying D7 (V7). Beethoven uses those accidentals and harmonies to rise slightly above and dip slightly below the I-V chords. He also uses them to lead to the next relevant harmony. E (V/V) leads to A (V) in a V-I cadence of sorts (relevant to the key of A). D7(I7) leads to G(IV) as using I7 is a common way of dipping down to the IV chord or subdominant.

The second sentence is much plainer in its harmonies; only using I-V7 chords but Beethoven does develop his main subject a bit. He flips the descending 3rds from before upside down to create a rising melodic line. He plays arpeggios in the base but it is not the cliché Alberti base. The transition (bars 13-17) is short and boils down to Beethoven’s strategy here; he descends down the scale from the D2-D3 octave to the G#1-G#2 octave, then just rises up a m2, leading to A2 (is not an octave). The arpeggios in the treble imply the harmonies that happen; here Beethoven deviates a little into Bm7 (vi7), then to G (IV), before going to E (V/V) and A (V). This transition is pretty quick and simple but it does show how Beethoven makes good use of something simple and basic like playing notes down a scale.

In first subordinate subject (bars 18-31) Beethoven takes the eight note snippets from the transition and changes them a bit to create material, allowing the snippets to make turns and rise up and fall down as a melody. And he mutates to Am just to make it more interesting. He wants to dip down back to D (to play IV-I chords relative to A) in the second sentence so he uses the C#dim7 harmony as a leading town. Beethoven then uses arpeggios here to stop the first sentence from dropping the tension but he sharpens the 3rd note in each one to make a more interesting sound.

The second subordinate subject (bars 32-37) is much plainer with the more typical Alberti arpeggios in the treble and a simple V-I harmony. Beethoven does this to trick you, to make it sound like he is making his closing remarks to end the exposition. V-I-V-I, done! But he is not. He takes a brief detour in Am (38-44), using an E-B-E7 (V-V/V-V7) cadence at the end to keep the music suspended on the V or dominant harmony. Had Beethoven used a E-A-E7 (V-I-V7) cadence it would work too but it would be less special and would be less able to hold you up in the air. The last sentence in the exposition (bars 45-50) is plain and finally wraps it up. This is the first piano piece where Beethoven purposefully delays an ending to develop ideas more and keep the suspense lasting longer. This technique will become one of his staple skills in later years.

Beethoven makes a long development section with two cores. He follows custom with a pre-core (bars 50-57) to prepare for the first core, where he transposes the main subject to A and chances it a bit to emphasize Bm. As I look back on other sonatas and symphonies, I see how often composers base their pre-cores off the main subject. At first I wondered why they did this but now I have an idea. In older music, like the music of Haydn, and even older music, like the music of Scarlatti, sonata form hardly had a development section; it was basically an exposition and recapitulation repeated twice. The pre-core is like the main subject but it is used to lead to “cores” where a bit of music is cycled through many different keys.

Moving on, the first core (bars 58-64) is made of material taken from the transition. Beethoven uses Bm as a home key with a lot of D7, the relative major, thrown in as if to show how the core relates to the home key. Bm has another use; Beethoven can mutate it into B7 and easily take us E. In fact, this is the key of the second core and retransition (bars 65-73), and Beethoven uses the second sentence of the first subordinate subject as material. Beethoven uses E to hang on A (the V chord or dominant of D) at the retransition, at this point we can see Beethoven’s entire plan. Bm led to E led to A. Beethoven starts at the relative minor of the home key (D) so he could go down the circle of fifths. His plan has a purpose in style not just in form; he moves down the circle of fifths to create a more relaxed feeling to the listener, fitting the nature of this sonata. He uses a similar tactic in the “Archduke” piano trio decades later.

We are in the recapitulation. The main subject (bars 73-77) is triumphant and slightly embellished; this slight altering made to announce the return of the main subject, after which we go straight to the first subordinate subject. The transition is completely gone, like it was in the first movement of the Fm sonata. Perhaps Beethoven felt adding a transition after such a big development was too much. He certainly does not do such a thing in his later work. In fact, he even goes so far to play the main subject differently and create a new transition more or less based on the old one, to develop the music even further, to keep the tension going, yet also to give the music a sense of homecoming. It is similar to how you end an argument by repeating your main points but not verbatim and add some important points to provoke thought long after you leave the podium or put down your pen. In this sonata, while Beethoven skips the transition, he does develop what comes after.

The first subordinate subject (bars 78-87) is strikingly in G (IV) instead of the usual D(I), done so to not stay on the home key for so long. The movement is not done yet! Mozart did something similar in the first movement of his “Facile” piano sonata where he played the main subject in F(IV) in the recapitulation. Beethoven himself does the same in the “Name Day” overture. The point is to further emphasize the IV harmony or subdominant while not being stale. If you should play some notes in IV why not play entire subjects and base the recapitulation around it? Though this will be the last time Beethoven takes this specific approach; that is playing subordinate subjects in the subdominant.

The second subordinate subject (bars 88-99) is in G but has 4 bars of extra material where Beethoven uses octaves in the base to go down the A7 and G chords to spell out the harmonies. A7-G (V7-IV) seems awkward at first but it’s more interesting than D7-G (I7-IV) and Beethoven uses it to play G7-D-A7-D (IV7-I-V7-I), a IV-V-I sequence in essence, to finally return to D. The closing statements (bars 100-112) begin in Dm and Beethoven uses three rising V-V/V-V7 (this time A-E-A7) chords to keep you hanging. The rest is in D.

SECOND MOVEMENT – MENUETTO, SOSTENUTO

Beethoven tries out a theme and variations in a piano sonata in the first time. While he does use some interesting harmonies his overall approach is typical for his time. Most eighteenth century composers, Haydn and Mozart included, would start with a simple melody and embellish it more and more with each new variation. Sometimes they play a variation where the key is mutated, played simply and often poignant, as resting point of sorts. The last variations are embellished again, sometimes to a greater degree than before, sometimes not so. Beethoven will break these rules later in his career, especially in his late period works, piano sonatas No. 30 and No. 32 and the Diabelli Variations; where he breaks down the theme to its basic structure and transforms it into something new each variation. But it is not that day. Beethoven is only twelve now.

The theme (bars 1-16) or subject that builds the entire movement is a simple minuet in two parts in three sentences. The melody in the first sentence us A-D (I-IV) harmonies, making it gentle, lazy, rocking like a hammock. But Beethoven puts interesting harmonies still; he includes Gr6 (really just VIb7), E9 (V9), and G#dim9 (vii9) in the cadence. – Maybe I complicate things too much. Baroque and classical composers would sometimes play the base in the I chord while they would briefly play the melody in the V chord before soon resolving it, blurring harmonies to create poignant dissonance. Beethoven may simply be doing this but we should understand that it implies a vii7 or vii9 chord, the leading tone back to the I chord. – The second sentence in E7 gives a loud contrast to the minuet before slipping back into a quiet third sentence. The harmonies in this second part are simpler than those in the first.

The first variation (bars 17-32) embellishes the melody into arpeggios, changing their function to filling out harmonies, while the base becomes the new melody. Beethoven plays with the D3 base note and I-IV-I harmonies in these variations; for instance here the D4 base note implies E7 (V7), not IV. The note is the same but the harmonies are different. In the second variation (bars 33-48) the base now becomes full of arpeggios, the treble goes back to a simple song but Beethoven writes it for two voice parts. He also reverts back to A-D-A (I-IV-I).

The third variation (bars 49-64) has the arpeggios get even quicker, the note values get even smaller into tuplets of three. At the end of the first and third sentences, Beethoven sharpens ever second note of each tuplet, similar to a tactic he used in the first movement. Harmonies remain the same. The fourth variation (bars 65-80) squeeze note values even smaller to thirty-second notes. Now Beethoven implies E7 each time he plays D in the base.

Beethoven rests in Am in the oasis that is the fifth variation (bars 81-96). Beethoven reverts back to a simple melody but now he syncopates it with the base while at later points he plays sixteenth notes with sharpened accidentals. Harmonies remain the same. In this manner Beethoven is still able to develop material and hold interest as to not merely repeat the theme in Dm. The sixth and final variation (97-112) has tuplets of eight notes as the melody. Composers of the period would sometimes end their variations by playing the theme again or playing a final variation where little of the theme is altered. Beethoven takes the latter route, developing material while still keeping the music friendly and gentle. He starts the coda (bars 113-120) on a deceptive cadence in F#m (vi), a different and more poignant way of ending the last variation, before smoothly rounding it off.

THIRD MOVEMENT – SCHERZANDO, ALLEGRO MA NON TROPPO

The last movement is most playful and buoyant movement of the whole sonata but you should not be fooled. Beethoven still has a few tricks up his sleeves, a little more wit to spare for our humanist. It is no walk in the park. The word “scherzando” roughly translates to “little joke” but you should not be fooled by the title. The movement is in sonata form, not in the ternary form of a scherzo or minuet. Haydn and Mozart made plenty of musical jokes in their career. Haydn’s method was to start a work with a closing statement, making the listener think the piece was already over. Mozart mocked bad composers and performers in “Some Musical Fun” by exaggerating the dullness of boring melodies and the dissonant sounds of wrong notes. Beethoven made jokes out of harmony throughout his career, as you will see in this movement.

We begin the exposition. Part of Beethoven’s humor in the main subject (bars 1-17) means jumping the melody up and down a sixth and octave while briefly jumping to B7, a rather remote key. The transition (bars 18-36) has a very long sentence; its rapid augmented sixteenth notes are funny like someone getting a little too ahead of himself. Beethoven modulates by quickly jumping to A and simply playing A-E-A (I-V-I) a lot, but he splatters some Bm(vi) and B7(VI7) to spice up the harmony a bit and to recall that funny B note.

Beethoven designs the subordinate subject (bars 37-52) to have two contrasting sentences, one exuberant the other grounded. He rushes with rising arpeggios in the first sentence while he swoops low with a M2 treble and humming base in the second sentence. As part of his joke, Beethoven gives each sentence the “wrong” harmonies. He gives A-D (I-IV) harmonies, the quieting subdominant, to the gay first sentence while he gives A-E7 (I-V7) to the quieter sentence. He even plays a prank in the closing statement (bars 53-58) by using A-D (I-IV). It’s as if the piece doesn’t want to move to a new key and you’re trying to move it as if dragging Homer Simpson away from the couch. Beethoven creates humor in the second half of the exposition by misplacing harmonies and keeping the texture light and transparent, even by “Kurfursten” sonata standards.

The development (bars 59-70) is hardly anything at all. Even the harmonies are stale, mostly A-D (I-IV), only briefly in Dm. Beethoven makes light of our expectations. We heard a terrific development in the first movement and listeners in Beethoven’s time expected a darkening of mood or some new harmony, so we have the right to expect at least something. But the young Beethoven laughs, “It’s nothing!” and so we move to the recapitulation.

The main subject (bars 71-86) repeats with no change. The “transition” (bars 86-89) can hardly be called any such thing. We expect something similar to the exposition, some emphasis on the IV chord or subdominant, yes, but at least something substantial. Beethoven again spurns us. He cuts straight to G without any fluff, and even makes it the key of his subordinate subject (bars 90-110), which he makes long by playing it in three variations. The first uses trills, the second gives the base the melody, the third gives the treble the melody. Now we can see Beethoven’s comic scheme; he puts all the development on the subordinate subject, the one part of sonata form we often think to be the most placid and uneventful.

He also expands the closing section (bars 114-129) into a long-winded sentence. In essence, he transplants the transition to the end of the sonata, highlighting the closing section, a piece of music most composers rushed off to end a piece. He “misplaces” harmonies here too. In the exposition Bm (vi/D) was an important punch line so we expect to be back but Beethoven replaces it with F# (V/Bm) instead. It is the vi chord of A, which Beethoven uses to suspend the music a bit. The closing section is done but the piece has yet to end. Enter the coda (bars 129-160); Beethoven plays the main subject one more time, one more little joke, then ends the piece in a long-winded flurry of sixteenth notes. Thus Beethoven ends the Kurfursten sonatas on a high note.

Beethoven, when making his second attempt to compose a piano sonata, wrote a more difficult and serious piece of music than he did when writing his first sonata. It is in the dark key of Fm, maybe the darkest key in classical music, has more complex harmonies, and has a denser harmonic structure. In this piece, Beethoven’s emotions are darker and more passionate in the minor first and second movement yet more pensive in the second movement in the middle. The second movement has a sublime quality we don’t hear in the earlier Eb sonata.

Yet, as I examine and play the sonatas of the mature Beethoven, I become shocked at how simply the preteen Beethoven wrote his early music in comparison. He still writes for two parts in most places, abuses the Alberti base, and uses the simple thin textures of octaves. Still, keep in mind that Beethoven was already a prodigy at twelve who could compete with most composers of the day three times his age. This sonata holds much promise for the young Beethoven, a promise he fulfilled in his later years.

All movements in this sonata are in sonata form. Click on the roadmap below to expand it. To hear the complete sonata with all annotations go to this link:

The exposition; the introduction (bars 1-9) is made of two contrasting sentences. The first sentence is a typical statement of slow introductions during that time, the first phrase goes from Fm to C, the next statement returns from C to F. He contrasts a heavy loud cord and dotted rhythm with soft legatos. The orchestration is not obvious but you can hear it; a loud tutti announcement followed by a soft string quartet. This beginning is important because we see Beethoven using music as a tool of speech and rhetoric, not just a way to string melodies together, which suggests that Beethoven will be able to build his ideas together, to create an argument or thesis if you will.

The second sentence develops the ideas of the first; he transforms the descend by 2nd into rising octaves, rising from F to Gb to A to Bb. Meanwhile he uses the Alberti base but in the base register, especially on the downbeat by striking the lowest notes on the pianoforte’s range. The bottom register sounds like a contrabassoon and base, especially on a pianoforte where the lower register is raspier. But more important, the rising line in the treble gives a slow, creeping, crawling feeling, a device Beethoven used a lot in his music to raise tension before releasing it. Beethoven also uses more inventive harmonies, like Gb (the Neopolitan major), then mutates it to Gbdim. And finally, he suspends the music on a C chord (V/Fm) with a C note as the base (the 5th or dominant note of Fm).

All this dense and detailed music at last done with, we move to the exposition proper. The main subject and transition (bars 10-17) are fused into one sentence and proceeds as thus; first the melody flies up two octaves in Fm as a Mannheim rocket, a tool Beethoven used a lot in his early career, inherited from Haydn and Mozart, and representing drama and angst. Then the melody descends in 3rds from Fm to Db to Bbm, a technique Beethoven recycled from his Eb sonata. I don’t blame him since using it takes you to a relative key so easily while using diverse harmonies.

The subordinate subject (bars 18-27) is in Ab, a typical key a composer would land on in a piece in Fm. The construction is very simple here; not one long intense passage but a contrast between a loud descend on the Ab chord and a soft rise on Eb. The closing theme (bars 28-36) feels a little forced but it is remarkable. The cello base descends down by 3rds (notes Ab, F, Db), something that fascinated Beethoven in his career.

The development (bars 37-46) is short and simple. In the first sentence, Beethoven imitates the Mannheim rocket but in Ab. The second sentence, the meat of the development, is new material not based on anything before it; alternates from chords to arpeggios and likewise alternates from Fm to Bbm. These are somewhat imaginative harmonies, as Beethoven mutates the home key and plays I-iv chords, not something too expected. And finally he suspends the piece with two chords on F.

He enters the recapitulation; the introduction here is very different from before, which is important as it shows how Beethoven adds new ideas to old material. It allows us to glimpse at how the mature Beethoven transforms the material he works with; he digs ever deeper into it, explores its potential, plays with it, changes it in all sorts of ways. He creates music that is different at the end of a peace or movement than before, making it feel like you went on a long journey and changed along the way. Of course you didn’t go anywhere. Beethoven was manipulating your mind all along, something he gets very skilled at over the years.

The introduction (bars 47-56); the first sentence changes harmonies a bit, Fm-F unlike before, which was Fm-C. It’s small but it takes the harmony down a 4th, giving a IV chord or subdominant like effect. The second sentence is very different; very loud rising arpeggios, important since this is material taken from the development section and expanded. Beethoven plays around with harmonies; he mutates the keys of Bb and Eb. He turns Bbm to Bb7 and Eb to Edim7. It doesn’t seem like much, but remember how he turned Gb to Gbdim? He’s doing it again but with more keys.

Beethoven plays recapitulation, almost exactly the same as the exposition, but with some differences in range and timbre he uses to create a darker sound to the music. The main subject (bars 57-64) is the same as before. The subordinate subject (bars 65-74), now in Fm, has the base and treble spread out by two octaves to create a more intense effect, then has phrases low in the tenor (viola) and base (cello and base) to create a darker feel. The closing statements (bars 75-83) have little change, the base only a m3rd lower than before.

MOVEMENT TWO – ANDANTE

The second movement shows the young Beethoven at his best on the piano; it has a certain sublime quality he achieves by doing three things. He uses ambiguous harmonies and rhythms, especially in the subordinate subject, he uses richer and more varied textures as opposed to octaves, and he writes for the key of Ab. Composers at Beethoven’s time thought each key had a special character best used to reflect certain moods and states of mind. The key of Ab had an eerie sound that made listeners pensive and sensitive to sublime thoughts, especially back in the day when performers used mean tuning to tune their instruments; the further a key was from C the more dissonant it sounded.

You could say classical music is based on the I and V chord (kind of how jazz is rooted in the I and IV chord), and composers use such a base to build a structure of building tension in the V chord and then resolving it in the I chord. Of course composers write in many remote keys in a work but the work, in the end, hangs on creating a I-V tension and resolving it. Beethoven turns this idea on its head during his middle and late period, like building a Eb-B tension in the “Emperor” concerto and a Bb-B tension in the “Hammerklavier” sonata, but that is many years from now. The young Beethoven suspends tension in this movement by not resolving in perfect or authentic cadences, allowing him to expand his ideas since he can avoid resolving them so soon.

I found this movement the most difficult to analyze out of all movements in these “Kurfursten” sonatas, leading to many mistakes in my annotation, which forced me to remake the YouTube video on this sonata.

The exposition; the main subject (bars 1-8), using 3rds to great effect while the base uses good counterpoint by rising by steps as the melody falls and having the melody an octave higher and with more sixteenth notes in the second phrase to heighten the emotion. The transition is made of two sentences; the first sentence (bars 8-16) expands on the main subject by having the melody, made songlike by its 3rds and 6ths, end in cadence that don’t resolve the music. Furthermore, in each cadence Beethoven uses Ab as the base to blur harmonies. It makes you wonder if Beethoven is really implying Eb7 with an Ab note thrown in or Bbm7. It would seem like an Eb7 but in the second sentence (bars 19-22) Beethoven mutates it to Bb so he can modulate to Eb with a Bb-Eb harmonies, which implies Bbm7.

The subordinate subject (bars 23-31) is the most special line in the entire sonata it starts on the wrong harmony. The first sentences starts in Fm in all places but then goes through many Bb7-Eb harmonies to imply Eb. The melody keeps climbing up the scale from the D note to the Ab note, then falls to a low F note, an imperfect cadence. The second sentence rising in dynamic and pitch up the scale to Bb, again suspending the music in Bb, the V chord. Beethoven is taking great pains to suspend tension as long as he can, something he didn’t do so well in the Eb sonata, and finally lands on Eb in the closing section (bars 35-40). He even uses three voices when closing, something a little new.

Beethoven divides the development into two pre-cores and two cores and uses it to replaces the main theme and transition in the recapitulation. The first pre-core (bars 40-44) mimics the main subject but in the harmonies of C7-Db and reverses the melodic arc from descending to rising. The core itself (bars 44-48) is in Fm, with a simple, sad, songlike melody rising and falling with a C note humming in the alto register. Beethoven purposefully makes the note C because it is the 5th note or dominant of Fm; by implying such he keeps tension and lets him play almost any melody without fear of dissonance.

The second pre-core (bars 49-54) acts as a “resting point”. Beethoven lingers in Edim7 (vii7/F), the leading tone to F, and constructs it in such a way to keep tension. He keeps most of it in Edim7, uses arpeggios to build up to a striking, loud syncopated section, and climaxes by keeping the music suspended briefly. Beethoven takes a syncopated section in the exposition as material and, while he doesn’t alter or expand it, he uses it for a different purpose. Then Beethoven resolves to the core, but lands on F, not Fm, like we expect.

The second core (bars 55-60) is pretty simple as Beethoven just plays thirty-second notes over an octave base. He concerns himself with returning to Ab. The base goes down the circle of fifths, from F, Bb, Eb, and Ab. The harmony implied by the thrity-second notes is not so simple as that Eb base is really part of a Gdim harmony. In the end, Beethoven makes an Eb-Ab-Eb cadence, ending with the base on the Eb, the dominant. Now on Eb, Beethoven plays the retransition (bars 61-64) like he played the transition before, serving the same function, just a 4th lower in harmonies. The subordinate subject (bars 65-76) and closing statement (bars 77-85) of the recapitulation change little, only a 4th lower in harmonies.

MOVEMENT THREE – PRESTO

The third movement is rapid and lighter in substance than the first movement but is still complicated in structure. The main subject (bars 1-32) comes in two sentences and it is the first time we see Beethoven develop a main theme by playing a variation of it. He approaches the main subject in later sonatas as well, such as the “Waldstein” and “Appasionata” but with far more invention. In this sonata, he changes the melody little and uses the Alberti base yet again, but the changed material still does its job to heighten the angst. But Beethoven does use some interesting harmonies. The very first bar of the main theme starts out in F but then mutates back to Fm and he makes use of the C9 (V9) harmony. It sounds like Gdim in the first sentence but later in the second sentence the Alberti base gives you context, letting you hear its true design.

The exposition; the main subject is also the transition, easily landing to the subordinate subjects. The first subordinate subject (bars 33-44) is in Eb7 and ends in a IV-I cadence, which is interesting because most composers would land on Ab instead. While Beethoven does land a 5th higher on Eb he makes it Eb7 and uses Ab to create a IV-I effect, suggesting he may move to Ab. The second subordinate subject (bars 45-59) makes the Eb7-Ab harmonies more obvious by using loud octaves in the base and arpeggios in the treble. The closing statements (bars 60-74) are also odd; he spends some time in Ab7 and Db, but finally lands on Ab. Beethoven delays modulation to the “proper” key.

The development and retransition fused together (bars 75-84) is extremely short. It’s even shorter than the main subject, and it does disappoint me a little as Beethoven could have at least played it again as a variation. Either way, Beethoven mutates the home key of Fm to F while developing the material a bit; he uses new keys like Gb (the Neopolitan or IIb) and Bbm (iv). He does develop the melodic arc as well by making it rise higher and more often. He dips the melody down a bit before rising it; he raises it Gb, then to Db, and landing it on C just a m2nd away.

The recapitulation; the first subordinate subject (bars 85-101) is a little more complex, dividing amongst the Fm-C7 harmonies, and uses the chromatic base of Bh to make a leading tone of Edim9 lead to Fm, but then makes an imperfect cadence in C to keep the tension high. The second subordinate subject (bars 97-112) is much simpler, arpeggios in C7 and Fm. The closing section (bars 112-126) has little change, just dropped by a m3rd to put the key in Fm. The very last notes are important though, as Beethoven throws all parts down to the lowest register to create a downward, tragic finale. He later replicates this ending in the Op. 2 and “Appasionata” Fm sonatas but to greater effect. Even now Beethoven seems aware the very lowest note on the pianoforte is an F note (the lowest note on the modern piano is an A note). It possibly represents a darkest, lowest point in music, in feeling and literally in tone with the pianoforte. Beethoven doesn’t find lower points in feeling or transcend them until his last piano sonatas.

We first see Beethoven writing piano sonatas in 1783, not the wild man we turned into a titan genius through myth but a mere boy of twelve. By this time Beethoven’s father Johan could no longer teach his son through his brutal methods so he turned his son over to more able tutors such as Christian Neefe, who introduced the young Beethoven to Johan Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. The boy learned quickly, practicing on the piano long past midnight for many nights to refine his skills, soon mastering J.S. Bach’s works.

Beethoven occupied himself with other tasks and hobbies. He played the organ in his church and the viola in the court orchestras of the prince electors ruling Bonn at the time. – The nation of Germany did not yet exist; the land was part of the Holy Roman Empire, broken into many small territories each ruled by a different prince. – In his spare time, Beethoven frequented the local university lectures, salons, and other forums, and quickly became enchanted by the principles of the Enlightenment, ideals he held until his final days.

The young Beethoven composed his first three piano sonatas in this climate, dedicating them to his Prince Elector Maximillian Frederick as per custom. The pianist Ronald Brautigam describes, in his booklet that comes with his recordings of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, that Beethoven drew heavily on Carl Phillip Bach’s “sensitive style” keyboard works and Haydn’s “storm and stress” piano sonatas. He then mentions how Beethoven was lucky his father was too drunk to discipline his son to compose in a so-called proper style; had Mozart tried to write such music his father would have stopped him.

I am listening to C.P.E Bach’s keyboard works as I write this very essay and I do hear some of the same muses who stirred Beethoven when he was only a teenager and would inspire him for the rest of his life. The music is indeed in a “sensitive style”, with touching melodies one moment and stormy, abrupt chords in another, elements Beethoven puts in his own sonatas. I hear adolescent melancholy, youthful play, ventures in playing dark and difficult music, and some sight into the abstract realms music takes you when you really listen to it.

Let us now study the first of these earliest sonatas. I created a road map, posted just below this paragraph, and a YouTube video with the entire sonata in annotations, link at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tWsQlPM1rg.

MOVEMENT ONE – ALLEGRO CANTABILE

The first movement, unlike Beethoven’s later sonatas, does not have any clear first subject, second subject, and so forth. It is like Mozart’s earlier sonatas and Classical ideals in general; you hear one gracious melodic line, then another, a new idea develops, all in balance and harmony. You can really think of movement one’s sonata form as a few melodies in Eb, then a few melodies in Bb, and so on.

Beethoven thinks along these lines of balance and harmony, his ideas mostly abstract, not trying to state any definite idea. He does explore a simple contrast between a high delicate woodwind range, a warm middle string range, and low stormy range. He does put more thought in his later “Kurfursten” sonatas on what he wants to say and how to say it; in the Fm sonata he explores loftier thoughts, but he is not used to writing in sonata form at the moment. Give the kid a break. He should do better things anyway, like try to get rid of his pimples, go to Hot Topic, and flirt with girls.

Beethoven’s “main subject” is made of a few melodies with little relation, but they do connect in the same way a few sentences create a paragraph; the paragraph being the “first subject”. The boy does put some color and contrast between sentences; sentence one has a rising then falling arc and implies a string ensemble (bars 1-4), another sentence leaps then falls in a woodwind’s register (bars 11-14).

When he modulates he plays many sixteenth notes to amp up the tension. Beethoven is technically in Bb already but he wants to establish a Bb harmony by modulating, so he does so as if he was in Eb in two sentences. In his first sentence he starts his first phrase in Bb, the second phrase in C (bars 15-18). He changes the harmony by moving it up a whole step, a technique Beethoven is fond of. The whole point of his exercise is to move to F, the V chord (or dominant) of Bb. By using the F harmony, Beethoven “overshoots” so he can play a V-I cadence of F-Bb.

The “subordinate subject” (bars 25-30) is very short and also counts as a closing statement, but what a striking and playful tune it is! Beethoven plays it twice, once as a flute, another as a violin. He brings back a similar contrast as before in his “first subject” but the order is reversed (woodwinds first, strings second). Beethoven does develop a few simple ideas; a contrast between high and low keys, and he develops it further.

We can break down the development into two “cores” where Beethoven explores an idea in the exposition. The first “core” . (bars 30-40). imitates the second idea but in Cm, among the highest keys. Nothing too new here. The second “core“ (bars 48-55) is made of arpeggios in minor chords, mostly Cm, the register low, dark, stormy. He retransitions to the “main subject” easily by playing Bb then Eb.

I can only comment little on the recapitulation since everything is the same as before, just a 5th lower, in Eb. The only difference is the “main theme” is truncated, so we only hear one sentence. For a while I wondered by Beethoven played a sentence in Bb so soon (bars 11-14) but I may have a clue now. Beethoven may have seen how the line in the recap is in Eb exactly repeats the line in the expo, so he may have changed the latter to Bb to avoid repeating himself and create a bigger feeling of returning home as the movement closes.

MOVEMENT TWO – ANDANTE CANTABILE

Beethoven shows his true talent and craft in this movement. Like in many sonatas, including the Fm sonata, the middle movement is the heart of the sonata, the highest seat of thought and feeling and a fulcrum between the two fast movements. Beethoven uses this form in many later sonatas throughout his career but he takes it to a much higher level. A good slow movement can change the nature of the entire sonata, such a crucible seems to transform the music as you go from the first movement to the last movement. As a composer myself, I find slow movements hardest to write but when I do it somehow helps me write later fast movements far better.

In the second movement we can really see Beethoven express the sensitive style he picked up from C.P.E. Bach as he sings his lonesome and tender song. The constant mood is of adolescent melancholy; you truly understand how sad and lonely this boy was, with no intimate friends, with only a few sensitive adult women to comfort and protect him. Already we see the young Beethoven improving as a composer in learning what emotions to express and what techniques he needs to do so.

Beethoven sets this mood by cleverly using chromatic notes in the treble and base and in the way he uses his sentences; he makes them “two-bodied” where the first phrase or clause, if you can call it that, is simpler and the second one is more complicated and intense. You tend to hear this in the second part (of B part) of the exposition and recapitulation. However, his base is somewhat staid, as he plays Alberti base for almost the entire movement. He lets the melody do most of the work and, like in a lot of early classical music, the base is used for harmonic filler.

In the main subject and very short transition (bars 1-13), Beethoven makes both Bb and Eb natural. This adds color, yes, but also suggests the key of C, which is the V chord of F, the dominant. He plays a chromatic rising base as he transitions, up from Bb, to B, to C. This way he plays an inverted F chord, making the cadence imperfect, keeping suspense kind of like how a novelist refuses to resolve the plot of a story just yet. The harmonies he implies throughout are Bb, F, C, F (IV-V-V/V-V), again he “overshoots” by playing a C-F cadence, which is V-I relative to the key of F.

Beethoven writes two subordinates subjects in F. The first subject (bars 14-19), is in the tenor and base registers. Beethoven suggests a viola and cello, the warm tones contrast high notes in the rest of the piece. It is a shame Beethoven doesn’t use more contrast. He again plays a chromatic rising base, this time suggesting Bb-F (IV-I) harmonies, and again keeps us in suspense with an imperfect cadence.

The second subject (bars 19-25) is more straightforward. The harmony is “offbeat here”, starting as V-I not I-V, and Beethoven plays a string of 32nd notes in fortissimo afterward to intensify the emotion. He also plays an F# note, implying Gm to make the harmony more ambiguous. Beethoven is very fond of the F# and Bh chromatic notes in the second and third movement of this sonata. And finally, he plays a perfect cadence at the end, resolving the tension he set up earlier and leading us to a poignant closing statement (bars 26-31).

The development section (bars 31-37) is very short but Beethoven makes good use of it by playing many chromatic notes; these include F#, G#, Eb, and C#. While Beethoven technically plays F-C7 (I-V) the whole time the chromatic notes imply other harmonies like Am, Cm, and Dm. In the very brief retransition he plays the Bb note at the end to imply a subdominant harmony (relative to the key of F) to return to the home key of Bb.

The recapitulation, like in the last movement, repeats the exposition almost verbatim, most of the material is transposed a 4th higher. The main subject (bars 38-42) is shortened so much it merges with the transition to make one sentence. The second subordinate subject (bars 49-56) has an extra bar but it is important. Beethoven uses it to play an Ab note; at the moment it suggests a Bb7 chord but in the entire subject it creates a strong subdominant feel. Most composers at the time dwelled in the IV chord in their recapitulations to anchor your sense of hearing back to the home key and usually to play a IV-V-I harmony. Beethoven does something similar here.

MOVEMENT THREE – RONDO, VIVACE

Beethoven changes form in this movement; now he opts for a rondo form not the usual sonata form, but it does sound a lot like a sonata. Its three main stanzas of A,B,C each resemble an exposition, development, and recapitulation, and each stanza is made of four lines of a,b,c,d. Like the first movement, this last movement is made of a string of different melodies that have little relation to each other but the emotions expressed are more intense. The major lines are more zesty and playful, the minor ones more brooding, the cadenzas otherworldly.

In stanza A, line a (bars 1-8) is a theme in Eb in the standard I-V-I harmony. Line b (bars 9-16) acts like a transition of sorts; Beethoven plays a arpeggios throughout to fill out harmonies, he toys with a chromatic rising base a bit to create Ebaug harmony, and later modulates by playing Bb-Cm7-F-Bb. Line c, the “subordinate subject” (bars 17-23), Beethoven plays arpeggios again, just with the hands reversed, plays Bb and Eb to create a I-IV-I feeling, as if he didn’t modulate to Bb at all. Beethoven ends the line by playing Edim7 then holding out on F a bit. This is a diminished cadence where the composer plays viidim7-I rather than the usual V-I (relative to F in this case). It adds some spice to the music and lets the composer travel to a distant key easily without having to worry about a V-I cadence. It becomes clear to us at this point this piece focuses more on harmonies than having distinct melodies, a contrast to the first two movements, especially the second movement.

His closing statement is in two sentences (bars 18-36). Beethoven must get back all the way from F (which is a whole step above Eb, notice how this parallels the first movement) to Eb. He does this by going down the harmonies by 4ths, from F to Bb to Eb. Once there, he goes briefly to Cm before going to Bb (playing I-V-I) where he suspends us in a Bb chord. We are now in the end of stanza A, the suspending chord acts as a cadenza, which many pianists fail to improvise as they lack invention.

Stanza B begins. Line a (bars 37-44) is our familiar first tune. Now in line b (bars 38-55), we enter the first “core” of a “development” section. Here Beethoven explores the arpeggios from before but this time he cycles through a bunch of flat harmonies close to Eb; these are Ab, Fm, Bb, Gm, Cm, Bb7, and F7. The second “core” in line c (bars 56-62), he plays a Ebdim7-F cadence so he can hold on to F a bit. Then in line c, the “retransition”, (bars 63-71) he hangs around Ebmin (the minor version of the home key) before arriving to a second cadenza in Bb.

Stanza C mimics a recapitulation but Beethoven is more inventive here than in the last two movements. Before he played the exact same material just a 4th below in harmony. Now he does a few new things. We hear the first tune again (bars 72-79) as a “main subject”, barely any different than before. In line b, the “transition” (bars 80-87), he moves to Cm. He returns to using diminished cadences, this time twice; first with Bdim7-Cm, then with F#dim7-G. In line c, the “subordinate subject” (bars 88-99), is in Eb with the standard V-I, spiced up a bit with Ab (the subdominant) and another diminished cadence from F#dim7-Gm. Next Beethoven hangs around Cm, playing V-I with some Fm in it. This Cm sentence thus mirrors the Eb sentence before.

We enter the final cadenza, the notes held out in a single voice on the C note. Then we enter line d, the “closing section” (lines 100-109), where the main tune repeats again with a small extra flourish at the end to finish the movement. The main Eb theme changes very little throughout the entire movement, which shows how the young Beethoven is still pretty new to sonata form. The mature Beethoven would never repeat himself like that, a good counterexample being his “Rage Over a Lost Penny” rondo. He transforms the theme in so many ways; he changes its register, plays it in a remote key, diminishes it, embellishes it, shortens it, develops bits of it elsewhere in the piece, makes at least two variations out of it, uses it build a coda, and so on, all in five and a half minutes. However, the young Beethoven’s genius is emerging, even now he is getting the knack of writing complex and passionate music.